Imprint technology is a fine processing technology, which uses a mold having a reverse pattern of the desired fine concave-convex pattern. The mold is pressed against a transferring material on a substrate, thereby transferring the reverse pattern of the mold onto the transferring material. Here, the transferring material is a liquid resin for example. The reverse pattern of the fine concave-convex pattern can vary between a nano-scale pattern of 10 nm-level size to a 100 μm-level size. The reverse pattern is used in a wide range of field including semiconductor materials, optical materials, recording media, micro machines, biotechnology, and environmental protection.
With respect to a transferring method to transfer the reverse pattern onto the transferring material, an imprint mold in the form of a roll manufactured by winding a film mold onto a transferring roll, or a metal roll manufactured by carving out a metal can be used. These rolls are used in the roll to roll method to continuously transfer the reverse pattern onto the transferring material.
In order to prepare the imprint mold in the form of a roll from the film mold, both ends of the film mold need be joined. As a method for joining the film mold, Patent Literature 1 discloses a technique in which the edge portions of the butted resin film are sandwiched with a pair of heaters, thereby pressure-fusing the edge portion; and a technique in which the edge portions of the resin film to be joined are overlapped, followed by pressure-fusion of the portion to be joined.